One Little Kiss
by WildcatLizzie83
Summary: Chase's rationale for granting a young girl's dying wish.


**_Disclaimer:_ **_All characters belong to David Shore, et al. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue me. I'm a poor college student who has no money anyway._

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She was looking up at him; looking so much like the weak, broken little girl that she really was.

She was asking something of him that would've been an easier decision if he were in any other position than her doctor.

"Will you kiss me?"

At first he thought that he was hearing things. He turned from the machine to look at her and he realized that he hadn't been mistaken. Her eyes were heavy lidded from the cocktail of medication that she was on, but he still saw so much in them that he recognized from his own youth: fear, desperation, as well as other things that he couldn't quite place.

He made feeble attempts to explain that he couldn't kiss her because he was twenty years her senior, but she persisted, insisting that she wouldn't tell anyone.

He remembered when he was younger how he would lie to his mother's friends about where she was when they came to call.

When, really, she was just several feet away passed out in another drunken stupor.

He'd gotten good at making up stories about how she was out shopping or even out with his father in an attempt to reconcile; which was something he wished for dearly before he realized that it hurt less to just not care.

He never spilled his mother's secret, understanding that it was hers to tell. He kept it even after he had grown tired of sweeping up broken glass and mopping up spilled gin.

Yet he always felt that he had never done enough to help her even though he knew that he had carried a heavy burden for any grown man, let alone a twelve-year-old boy. He should've talked to someone, his aunt, their priest, anyone that would've leant a sympathetic ear and could have helped his mother and given him another chance for a normal childhood.

Back in the present he tried to assure her that he wasn't her last chance to be kissed. She was going to walk out of Princeton-Plainsboro healthier than when she came in, even if all they did was add on another six months or a year to her life.

"What if this is my last chance?" she asked him, looking every bit as scared as she sounded.

Even though her eyes were partially closed, he could see that she was looking at anywhere but him. He was somewhat grateful for that, since he could hardly look directly at her as well.

The five years that he spent taking care of his mother flashed before his eyes. He would've given anything to have his father come back home and set things right; the way things used to be.

All he wanted to do was to go out and play football with his friends. Instead, he stayed at home and made sure that his mother didn't asphyxiate on her own vomit. He never got his wish.

All she wanted was one little kiss. What harm could come from that?

Well, for one thing, he could lose his job. And if her mother found out, she could press charges.

One little kiss for a dying girl could bring about so many problems for not only him, but the hospital as well. So why was he thinking that he would grant her request anyway?

"Please kiss me?"

Before he could talk himself out of it, he bent over and kissed her. When he straightened himself up again, he tried to look busy and concentrate on the task at hand, but his mind kept replaying what he had just done. He certainly wasn't proud of himself, but he wasn't sorry that he did it, either.

The next morning, House had been able to read him like a book; the same way he managed to with everyone that he came in contact with. It was one of House's more troublesome traits.

Why had he kept insisting that she hadn't had sex? Maybe if he hadn't pushed the issue so hard, House wouldn't have been able to guess and wouldn't have announced it to everyone. Well, _he _had announced to everyone, but there was no point in trying to deny it. Cameron had been disgusted, Foreman thought he was an idiot, and House had simply been amused.

But he wasn't going to apologize to his colleagues for what he'd done. So what if they were no longer looking him in the eye? They'd get over it. He knew what it was like to feel so hopeless and desperate that all you could do was hold on to one small wish. No one was able to grant his. At least he had been able to grant hers.


End file.
